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Pragmatism and the application of it is an art all of it's own. A pragmatist may change their own clutch, but get a professional to do their wiring. It's about

by ehnto 6y ago

Pragmatism and the application of it is an art all of it's own. A pragmatist may change their own clutch, but get a professional to do their wiring. It's about addressing the situation and making a reasonable choice.

the_af 6y ago
Oh, fully agreed! And I think Pirsig would have agreed, too. Regardless, you need some level of understanding to make the call. A particularly funny anecdote from the book, if you read it, is when he decides some fix is too delicate for him and takes his motorcycle to a repair shop. Right from the start he gets a bad vibe -- the mechanics are all kids listening to loud music and seemingly not paying attention to what they are doing. This is later confirmed: they return his bike without fixing the problem, then try to fix it more seriously but forget to screw some vital parts, leading to additional damage, and in the end they completely fail to fix the problem. What's important is that right from the start Pirsig got the feeling something was off about this repair shop, and he could sense this because he know enough about the components of his bike (for example, he guessed they had forgotten to screw something down simply because it's easy to miss and he knew this screw was there). If, like his friend John, you decide "I have something else to spend my time on, better leave this to the professionals", it might seem superficially a pragmatic choice but it could also make you fail to notice the repairmen who are bad at their jobs, until it's too late and your piece of machinery fails catastrophically.
- ehnto 6y ago
  Absolutely, I have a car that sits in a specialist category these days, and there is exactly one shop I'll take it to in this city because they're experienced in all the idiosyncrasies of the platform. But I only know that because of how much time I've spent on the car myself. My friend who has a similar car but doesn't work on it got fleeced for two years at his chosen shop, they didn't even do some of the work they billed for. Now we've got him at a specialist and it's been cheaper and better quality work. It's not that my friend is dumb either, as with John, he was making what seemed like the smart choice with the knowledge he had, given the level of effort he was willing to put into learning about his car. He has other priorities, so perhaps the pragmatic choice for him given they're a niche car, would have been getting a recommendation from the car community about where to go.

by ehnto 6y ago

the_af 6y ago

Oh, fully agreed! And I think Pirsig would have agreed, too. Regardless, you need some level of understanding to make the call. A particularly funny anecdote from the book, if you read it, is when he decides some fix is too delicate for him and takes his motorcycle to a repair shop. Right from the start he gets a bad vibe -- the mechanics are all kids listening to loud music and seemingly not paying attention to what they are doing. This is later confirmed: they return his bike without fixing the problem, then try to fix it more seriously but forget to screw some vital parts, leading to additional damage, and in the end they completely fail to fix the problem. What's important is that right from the start Pirsig got the feeling something was off about this repair shop, and he could sense this because he know enough about the components of his bike (for example, he guessed they had forgotten to screw something down simply because it's easy to miss and he knew this screw was there). If, like his friend John, you decide "I have something else to spend my time on, better leave this to the professionals", it might seem superficially a pragmatic choice but it could also make you fail to notice the repairmen who are bad at their jobs, until it's too late and your piece of machinery fails catastrophically.

ehnto 6y ago
Absolutely, I have a car that sits in a specialist category these days, and there is exactly one shop I'll take it to in this city because they're experienced in all the idiosyncrasies of the platform. But I only know that because of how much time I've spent on the car myself. My friend who has a similar car but doesn't work on it got fleeced for two years at his chosen shop, they didn't even do some of the work they billed for. Now we've got him at a specialist and it's been cheaper and better quality work. It's not that my friend is dumb either, as with John, he was making what seemed like the smart choice with the knowledge he had, given the level of effort he was willing to put into learning about his car. He has other priorities, so perhaps the pragmatic choice for him given they're a niche car, would have been getting a recommendation from the car community about where to go.